“Instead of giving up, he started STRIDING toward me- he was already quite close but he was coming for me.”
I was waiting for a bus metres away the intersection of Westgarth and High st in Northcote – Luckily it’s a fairly populated & residential area, with bars around the corner, the 86 tram stop, and close to Westgarth train station, but also close to dark, quiet streets and some alley ways. I was facing High St when a guy walked up from behind me and commented “nice fuckin’ arse on you,” to which (without thinking) I responded “Piss off, mate.”
He’d reached 4-5 metres in front of me by then but the reaction was instant. He stopped walking, turned around, and started snarling at me. “Ah, you’re a fucking dyke, you stupid bitch, ever had a cock?” (By then grabbing his junk just in case I didn’t, I guess). “You know what a fucking cock is? I’ll fucking show you, you fucking dyke bitch.” If he’d been walking away while shouting all this I probably would have ignored him, but he wasn’t moving, continuing to gesture and swear at me. I was pointing my phone at him, trying to switch my phone camera to ‘film’ but not taking my eyes off him.
I shouted back over him “You know what I’m doing mate, don’t you? I’m filming you. Your face is on camera. Now FUCK OFF and leave me alone!” Instead of giving up, he started STRIDING toward me- he was already quite close but he was coming for me. I stepped forward and yelled “HEY! HEEEY!’ loudly enough I hoped to wake someone up, or at least alert someone on High Street. He stopped seemingly taken aback, resumed shouting and swearing, only this time “Ah, fuck you you stupid dyke c***, you’re gonna get fucking raped! Someone’s gonna rape you!” so on, so on, slowly walking backward to High St and pointing at me.
Sadly, I didn’t manage to get any pictures of him or film him which I really fucking regret but I’ll be damned if I was going to take my eyes off him. (link to where it took place: http://goo.gl/maps/mj5K6) He was of medium height, wiry but not skinny, bald/ shaved head, late 30s mid 40s, wearing cargo pants with a dark bonds-style singlet top, and a broad kind of ‘smaccent” (smack- accent) but as far as I could tell he wasn’t drunk, slurring, or smelling of booze or anything. I don’t think the incident would have bothered me so much except for the part where he started going for me! What the fuck was he going to do?
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Far out, that is completely horrifying! Great idea to start filming him, or at least make him think you were. Good on you for being so brave.
This is text-book harassment. Sexual-harrassment-101: Man approaches woman in sexually suggestive way, women is not reciprocal/tells him to get lost, man becomes angry and calls woman an ugly sexless lesbian slut whore (yes, miraculously, we can be all those things at once). In the case of Jill Meagher, Adrian Bayley becomes so angry when she ‘flipped him off’ after he ‘just tried to be nice and help her’ in the street that he raped and murdered her.
It’s no accident that rape threats are the default of men trying to intimidate women. Men make rape threats because they KNOW that rape is the most terrifying, degrading thing that can happen to a woman – it puts us in our place and reinforces their dominance over us.
Good on you for sharing your story with us here. This must have been utterly terrifying. It is extraordinary that you were brave enough to actually step towards him rather than away, and to raise your voice, that was a really strong and courageous way to act.
right on girl,for stepping forward and challenging him! I would have done the same – Im 5ft 10 and have a biggish build, so not easily intimidated. I live in Brunswick, I know that bus stop well. Wow, that is unbelievable how that guy acted! I’d be surprised if he hasnt already raped someone in the past….